


Matters of Taste

by idola



Category: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu | The Legend of the Legendary Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Denyuuden AU Week 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idola/pseuds/idola
Summary: With nowhere to go after a break-up, Sion ends up staying with his least favorite advisor while he figures out where to go next.
Relationships: Sion Astal & Miran Froaude, Sion Astal/Ryner Lute
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Matters of Taste

**Author's Note:**

> day 1 - modern au

“Have you found a new place to live yet?”

Sion had every right to tense in suspicion. Lucile didn’t do small talk. He shattered spines and said the three sentences that could completely break any man’s self-esteem with a smile. Small talk didn’t do either of those things.

“I… haven’t,” Sion said. “I’ve been too busy at work.”

“Strange. I heard that you left as soon as you could.” The amusement in Lucile’s voice was palpable. He really thought this was funny, didn’t he?

“Did you hear that from Ferris? I suppose that means Ryner’s been talking about it.”

Lucile didn’t answer, but his smile didn’t waver.

“…I’ve been staying in a hotel. It’s close to the office, so it’s convenient.”

“I see.”

“If you’re worried that I’ll ask Ferris for a place, don’t. Unlike Ryner, I know better. That’s why he’s staying and I’m going.”

“Is that so. Here I thought you just liked having staff wait on you hand and foot.”

Sion grimaced. That wasn’t true. Lucile should know that it wasn’t true. “I’d take a real house over a hotel any day. But searching and seeing places takes time that I just don’t have right now.”

Miran Froaude quietly stepped into the door frame. Sion scowled.

“Sir, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”

“Of course,” Sion said. He heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“If I may… I have a spare room in my house. If you require temporary residence, I would be more than happy to lend it to you…”

“No, I—”

“Wonderful idea,” Lucile interrupted. He places a couple fingers on Sion’s neck and drew them upwards, slowly, as if to tell him not to argue. “Good for you, Sion.”

“……”

Sion was surrounded by dangerous people.

He had no choice but to accept his fate if Lucile was giving him that _look._ This was why everyone said not to keep dangerous people around, wasn’t it? Because they could make him do dangerous things. He’d be good in the next life. He wouldn’t hire people who could make him break out in a cold sweat with a single look anymore.

“…Y, yeah,” Sion said after a moment of despair. “Sure. Thanks.”

Froaude smiled. It really, really didn’t make Sion feel any better.

\---

A pit in Sion’s stomach accompanied him the whole way to Froaude’s.

“You have a dog,” Sion said when Froaude set to unlocking a door with loud barks echoing on the other side. “I didn’t think you were the type to keep animals.”

“I have two.” Then, when Sion didn’t respond, “Do you dislike dogs, sir?”

“No, not at all. I’ve just never had pets, so I’m not really sure what to do.”

“They aren’t fond of strangers. Please excuse them if they should growl at you.”

“Oh, haha… they won’t attack, will they?”

“Not unless I tell them to.”

The reason why he had dogs in the first place clicked at the same time the lock clicked open to let them in. The dogs themselves were black and quite large. And boy, did they have teeth. Sion would be more surprised if they’d never attacked someone before than if they had.

Froaude didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. If he did, he didn’t care, which was pretty typical of him. He ignored the dogs as they tried to sniff both him and Sion and walked with purpose towards his goal, which ended up being upstairs. Where the dogs followed. While growling at Sion.

It was looking like they just followed Froaude everywhere they could, presumably to protect him. That was what he wanted to believe, at least, since the other option was that they were following because they thought Sion smelled delicious.

No, Sion didn’t particularly like dogs. He didn’t have the best memories of them.

“This is the spare room,” Froaude said and pushed at a wooden door at the end of the hall. It creaked softly as it moved, as if the hinges hadn’t been oiled in some time. The sound made the dogs whine.

Froaude shushed them sharply, shooting an icy glare their way for good measure. They obeyed.

Sion tried to ignore how weird it all was, but when every bone in his body said it was time to reconsider coming, it was a little difficult to stay professionally calm and collected.

“This is… where I’ll sleep?” Sion asked. It was a pretty normal room, from the looks of it. Nice bed. Nice decor. Bit dusty, though.

“Is it satisfactory to you? If you prefer, you could use my room instead… I would not mind.”

Uh, no. “This is fine,” Sion said. Then, for good measure, “Really.”’

Froaude showed him to a few other places - the basics, like where the kitchen was, the coffee, the bathrooms, and where he could store his luggage. Then he stood back… to observe, apparently. 

Sion sat down on a couch. He might as well attempt to get comfortable if he was going to be staying here. Froaude did the same, sitting on the couch across from him.

As soon as Froaude sat, a dog jumped up on the couch to lay across his lap. He let it, placing a manicured hand over its head and petting it slowly.

“You let the dogs on your couches?”

“Of course.”

“…So you really are a dog person.”

“That is what owning dogs implies,” Froaude said. The second dog jumped up. What had looked like too large of a couch for Froaude alone a moment ago suddenly looked very crowded. 

“They really adore you,” Sion said. He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. It was just too surreal seeing dogs lick Froaude’s face and try to cuddle into his lap. They were happy dogs. Large breed, mouths full of teeth, black as night. They were different from the white dog he’d been sent after his mother died… but when he looked at the shape of their snouts, it was so similar that the thought kept entering his mind.

“I have had them for a while now,” Froaude said. “It’s only natural that they appreciate the person who brings them food and water.”

And trained them, and pet them, and taught them to maul people. Those all went unsaid.

Sion resumed work as best as he could in his unfamiliar environment. Time passed quickly as soon as he set to answering emails. But that didn’t stop him from noticing his surroundings as the day dragged on.

Still, despite the discomfort, he was able to get about an hour of sleep that night before going back into the office the next day.

His guard, Lucile, was unusually chatty. “Did you sleep well?”

Forget having a sore face from smiling. Sion’s was sore from frowning. “Hardly.”

“Haha. You’re so difficult.”

“……”

That was all they had to say to each other. It was strange that Lucile stuck his nose into Sion’s business like this. Then again… over the past year, he’d gotten a little touchy where Froaude was concerned. If Sion complained about him, Lucile was the first to defend him.

It was worrying. Mostly because Sion was certain that Froaude and Lucile could both get away with murder. Still, he forced himself to not pay too much attention to it. It would only make him anxious.

The days came and went with Sion hard at work. He went back to Froaude’s every now and then when he was exhausted enough that he needed to crash. But they didn’t talk much more than they usually did, thankfully. Sion wouldn’t be able to handle talking to Froaude any more than necessary in a day. 

Froaude was a hard worker, but when he came home, he didn’t just work. He had to take care of his dogs, and he spent a surprising amount of time on his nails, too. Those were things Sion had never considered before. They were often the last to leave the office, so Sion had always just assumed that the work that he went home with was the same size of the pile of work Froaude took back.

The worst part was that despite the fact that Froaude didn’t work himself quite as close to the edge of death, he still couldn’t help himself. He just had to bitch at Sion for how he did his work.

[9:34] Froaude: Please sign off on the financial report.

[10:13] Froaude: There is an error on page 37. Please reprint it and sign off again. It is imperative that it is recorded in error-free completion before the deadline tomorrow morning.

[11:47] Froaude: Please do remember to get some sleep, sir.

And whose fault was it that he wasn’t sleeping right now!!

Forget being offered coffee and breakfast. Froaude didn’t interact like that, nine times out of ten. No, he’d much rather point out every single thing that Sion was doing wrong. Then sound apologetic for a minute. Then go back to pointing out Sion’s flaws.

Froaude was basically the anti-Ryner. Anything Ryner would have said kindly, Froaude said harshly. But he did get his work done, so it wasn’t like Sion had any right to complain… 

Sion came home past midnight on the fifth day of living with Froaude. He glanced at the coffee table - certainly, there was a sizable number of work related reference documents. But there was also a nail file he’d left out.

In general, Froaude wasn’t as tidy as Sion had vaguely imagined him to be. He wasn’t messy, but it looked like he’d gone to sleep in the middle of working last night.

Sion thought back to his old hotel room. Certainly, he’d left papers across the bed as he accidentally dozed off at his desk more than once. And he always came home only to continue working. A lukewarm pot of coffee said that Froaude did the same. But to a lesser extent. Always a lesser extent.

One would think that Sion’s tendency towards workaholism was what caused him and Ryner to break up. But in reality, that had nothing to do with it. Ryner worried over him and got him food and helped him work when deadlines began to loom overhead.

Was it just because it was late that Sion was overwhelmed with the urge to text his ex? People always said not to, but… but this was Ryner. What was the worst thing that could happen?

…It was probably best if he didn’t answer that. Sion would hurt him again. That was the worst thing that could and _would_ happen. Wasn’t it better if, for the time being, he focused on his work in this house that he felt so alien in?

Come to think of it, Sion never saw the dogs at this time of night. On the first day he’d been certain that they’d come and harass him every time he came home until Froaude came out to shush them. But they didn’t.

“…Wonder if they sleep in his bed,” Sion mumbled to himself. Then he scrunched up his nose. He hadn’t actually wanted to imagine it. But it was late and he did.

He climbed the creaking stairs. The first door was Froaude’s, and the second was his own. He didn’t mean to look. But it was open, and Sion’s mind was nosy in a subconscious way, always curious about what everyone else was doing, so he looked before he realized what he was doing. 

“……”

They met eyes. Through the dark of the hall, the dark of the window. Froaude never slept with his door closed or his window closed. It was odd. Because he seemed like someone who wanted to sleep in isolated darkness, but in reality, he didn’t seem to like it at all.

Sion tried to look away and make himself leave. He didn’t want to answer to the cold question in Froaude’s eyes. Why didn’t he look tired? He was supposed to be asleep. Why was he sitting up in bed? He ought to at least be lying down.

“…You are up late.”

“So are you,” Sion said quickly. Because Froaude was sitting up in bed, staring. Two sets of glow-in-the-dark canine eyes were staring at Sion from either side of Froaude. It was a lot for just past midnight. Enough to make him feel like he was entering some nightmare world.

Froaude closed his eyes for a moment. Then opened them again. He didn’t offer an excuse like that he remembered something he had to do or that he couldn’t sleep. Instead, when he spoke, it was with his usual disinterested, yet somehow harsh tone. “Have you found your room to your liking?”

“…The bed is really comfortable,” Sion said. And that was true. It felt high quality. Unnecessarily so. It was the kind of thing that he would never buy himself.

Froaude grimaced. It didn’t look intentional. “I see. So you like it…”

Sion had the strong urge to argue. “Uh, well… I’d rather get my own place. Sooner than later, I mean. It’s not, er… I mean. I’m actually allergic to dogs.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.”

Froaude smiled. The same vague, cold smile as always. “I was not aware that canine allergies could be asymptomatic.”

Irritation flashed through Sion’s mind. Whatever Lucile was trying to accomplish by making them roommates, Sion was pretty sure it wasn’t happening now, nor was it ever going to happen.

They were incompatible as people. No amount of talking would make them any less incompatible. They would never be friends.

Sion forced himself to take the last few steps over to his own room. He locked the door behind himself and sighed.

If only he could have stayed with someone _normal._ Like… Claugh. He’d stay with Claugh any day of the week. Or Luke. There was no way Luke wasn’t the most normal person ever at home.

But here he was, forced to room with Froaude against his will by the demon he called his bodyguard.

Sion sighed again for good measure. Then he did what any reasonable person did when they were faced with a situation like this: began searching for blackmail material.

Claugh had done Miran’s background check, and Claugh never gave Sion the juicy details when he looked into that stuff. So Sion might as well get them himself.

He looked under the bed. Nothing.

Sion had been living out of a suitcase, never bothering to move his clothes to the dresser. The old dresser had a number of old outfits, none of which would ever fit Frouade. They were probably a family member’s. 

Well, that made sense. Why else would he have an extra room? Townhouses like this were usually bought up by families that lived elsewhere in the country but visited Reylude every now and then for business. Though it wasn’t too unusual for someone to get a job in the city and start living there full time either.

Sion searched a few more places. The nightstand and the master bathroom attached to his room. But he didn’t find anything of particular interest. It was all just dust as far as the eye could see.

“……”

Wait, what happened to the guy whose clothes were here, then? Why did he let it get so dusty? Did Froaude break contact with him? Was he dead?

He was dead, wasn’t he. Froaude was having him stay in a dead man’s room.

Sion quietly took his phone from his pocket and dialed Ryner’s number from memory.

\---

“So you got back together with Ryner,” Lucile said. “How disappointing.”

“Since when did you care what I do?” Sion grumbled.

“Am I not allowed to participate in company gossip?”

No. Absolutely not. But Sion forced a shrug.

“Haha. I take it that he wasn’t to your liking, even after you got the chance to know him better…”

“Froaude? No, of course not. He’s not exactly likable.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, r…”

Sion stopped halfway through his sentence. A light bulb had just gone on in his mind.

Lucile was quiet for a moment before laughing again. It was that same stale laugh as always. A sad impression of a laugh track after a joke that nobody thought was funny. “I’ll be sure to comfort him, then.”

“…Uh, yeaaahh.” As usual, Lucile didn’t seem to care if his punchlines were even remotely funny. 

Sion’s phone buzzed. He looked down to see a text from Ryner.

[7:03] Ryner: I can’t believe you’d keep me from sleeping in on the very same day you begged for me back. ;_; anyway I’m getting donuts, want one?

He could almost cry from joy. Ryner was just so _normal._ So _nice._

“Just… just don’t kill anyone together,” Sion finally said to Lucile. “I really don’t have the time to clean blood off the walls. I’m busy with the finance reports.”

**Author's Note:**

> i started this back when i liked sioran and decided to pick it back up for au week because i think it’s a good chance to talk about sion and mirans interactions, even if not from the romantic perspective that i initially viewed the concept from haha.
> 
> i dont have anything against them together, i just think it would take a long, long time to happen instead of being something that comes up overnight, you know? because while sion is everything miran likes in a person, unfortunately miran is everything sion dislikes in a person. i imagine their payoff could be pretty good if sion started being nice to miran though


End file.
